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How much square footage do kegs take up

Hello gentleman,

I have been scouring the internet looking for an answer to this question and not having much luck. Perhaps my google-fu isn't quite strong enough, but I am hoping someone here might have some insights for me.

My intention is to develop a formula to roughly estimate the cold storage requirements for x amount of kegs. I know the dimensions of a 1/2 bbl keg but what I do not know is are they commonly put on pallets, or not, are they stacked when full and if so how high.

Much appreciation to anyone out there who can share their knowledge with me.

This is what I found on a different thread previously. (8) 1/2 BBL kegs, (20) 1/6 BBL kegs, ((16) 1/4 BBL?) on a 40x48 pallet assuming they are double stacked.

I am figuring my cold storage assuming (4) per pallet, and stacked (3) kegs high using a small pallet stacker. Assuming (3) kegs high, that would be 12 kegs in about 13.3 sqft in a 10' tall cold room. Note that you will also need to include space between the stacks to get a pallet stacker in there.

I hope this helps.

Brandon Besser, P.E.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom" - Gandalf

Eight 1/2 bbl kegs will slightly overlap the 40" dimension of a pallet when close-packed (three rows, 3-2-3), so roughly 18 ft2 or 2.25 ft2/keg when you allow for a little maneuvering room. Stacking is common - I've been induced to stack three-high on occasion but in my opinion that's a dubious option safety-wise and unless your cellarman is a giant even unassisted two-high stacking is unwise. So 1.1-2.3 ft2/keg depending on whether they're stacked.

Without pallets you can do better: if you had an arbitrarily large field of 16.5" diameter close-packed kegs the density would be ~90%, or 1.0 ft2/keg. Of course that may not be realistic in a cold room, where you want to actually move kegs in and out without moving all their neighbors. So you're right back to a square lattice 16.5" on a side, which is 1.2 ft2/keg.

So basically it comes down to how you want to store and move kegs - whether your cellarman can/should stack, whether you're using pallets, etc.

This is what I found on a different thread previously. (8) 1/2 BBL kegs, (20) 1/6 BBL kegs, ((16) 1/4 BBL?) on a 40x48 pallet assuming they are double stacked.

I am figuring my cold storage assuming (4) per pallet, and stacked (3) kegs high using a small pallet stacker. Assuming (3) kegs high, that would be 12 kegs in about 13.3 sqft in a 10' tall cold room. Note that you will also need to include space between the stacks to get a pallet stacker in there.

I hope this helps.

Stacking three high is doable, but can be nerve racking sometimes. You'll want to plastic wrap at least any sixtel stacks for safety. And nobody should be manually getting kegs off a 3 high, so you'll need to take the top stack down to unload it. Which is a pain if you just need one keg... So busy workers will be inclined to try and just get that one keg off the top, and that's how accidents happen.

And while you can theoretically fit 3 high stacks in a 10' cold room, in reality you will run into problems if you're not careful. Door overhangs, light fixtures, and fire suppression systems, will all get in the way for example.

Stacking three high is doable, but can be nerve racking sometimes. You'll want to plastic wrap at least any sixtel stacks for safety. And nobody should be manually getting kegs off a 3 high, so you'll need to take the top stack down to unload it. Which is a pain if you just need one keg... So busy workers will be inclined to try and just get that one keg off the top, and that's how accidents happen.

And while you can theoretically fit 3 high stacks in a 10' cold room, in reality you will run into problems if you're not careful. Door overhangs, light fixtures, and fire suppression systems, will all get in the way for example.

I was thinking three stacks with a pallet separating each layer of kegs to start with. That should end up with a total stack height around 7'-0" with around 3' of clearance, but I definitely had not considered any fire suppression requirements inside the cold room. Also had not considered how much the stacker could extend above the kegs.

Thanks for the additional considerations!

Brandon Besser, P.E.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom" - Gandalf

Everyone has touched well on the space that the pallets take up, another equally important factor is how you move them around. Depending on the forklift, they need a certain amount of space to turn into the pallet, so straight sqft of kegs is not what is needed unless you are hand stacking everything(which is a workmans comp. claim waiting to happen.) 40x48 pallets of kegs, 4 levels high is what we do, the top level has strapping to keep the bundle together. We use a walkie stacker forklift to move everything around.

Use a Keg Jockey

We manufacture the Keg Jockey lift for this exact problem, as well as avoiding workman's comp claims, we can stack kegs up to 4 high.
Check us out HERE.
If you have any questions contact me.joe@vermettlifts.com

Last edited by kegjockeylift; 10-19-2016 at 04:09 PM.
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